


Trade of Danger

by NevillesGran



Category: October Daye Series - Seanan McGuire
Genre: Gen, I guess no one's told the AO3 tag wranglers about the Winter Long plot twist, Kidnapping, Partial Mind Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 20:00:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14838239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NevillesGran/pseuds/NevillesGran
Summary: In which the Crown Prince of the Westlands finds himself kidnapped.





	Trade of Danger

_“It was your presurmise,_   
_That, in the dole of blows, your son might drop:_   
_You knew he walk'd o'er perils, on an edge,_   
_More likely to fall in than to get o'er;_   
_You were advised his flesh was capable_   
_Of wounds and scars and that his forward spirit_   
_Would lift him where most trade of danger ranged:_   
_Yet did you say ‘Go forth’”_

 

  * __Henry IV Part 2, Act 1 Scene 1__



 

  


Quentin drifted up to consciousness slowly, like bread rising in the oven. His head hurt. He was, for some reason, sitting upright. He was tied to a chair, and that was enough of a nightmare scenario to wake him the rest of the way very quickly.

His vision spun as his head snapped up, but there wasn't much for it to settle on. The only light was from candles, which made him shiver, and all they illuminated was a dusty attic room full of wooden crates. There was a window on one side and a trapdoor in the floor, but both were closed with heavy plaster.

There was also Toby, sitting on one of the crates. She had some blood on her cheek, but it was barely a one on the Toby Scale of Blood Loss. She was a healthy Toby amount of pale, and looked as sharp-boned and faerie as Quentin had last seen her.

She sprang up when he moved. “Quentin! How do you feel? Is your head okay?”

She pressed her fingers against the tender back of his head, and her touch was gentle, but it still made him wince.

“I’m– how did I—”

His head pounded. Toby pulled away with pursed lips.

“I told you, he’ll be fine.”

The pounding solidified into reality as the Luidaeg walked into view from behind him, beating something with a mortar and pestle. She had her usual appearance: overalls, hair in a painter’s taped ponytail and freckles on her nose. “You didn’t hit him that hard. Hang on, I’m nearly done with this.”

“You—” Quentin’s memory caught up with him at last. “You did hit me! You kidnapped me, from the palace! Toby, what’s going _on?_ ”

Toby looked to the Luidaeg for help. The Luidaeg shrugged as if to say, _Your problem_. Quentin wracked his brain for any clue as to what was going on.

He’d been in his rooms, getting ready for dinner. It had been just him, and then Toby was there, with a _crack_ like snapping thorns and the faintest scent of blood. He’d been happy to see her—it was the first time in days. She had still been wearing the top to her wedding dress—she still was now, here in what could only be the Court of Cats. A red-brown stain at the torn waist hem said the skirt had probably been lost in a fourth, maybe even fifth-level event on the Toby Scale.

Then she’d knocked him out.

“No, no, this is a mistake.” Quentin tried again to break his bonds, this time not with half-awake desperation but determined yanking. “I have to get back—Lady Rosynhwyr is expecting me for dinner with my parents, I can’t disappoint her.”

The thought was horrifying on a scale he could barely comprehend.

The ropes stayed tight. Toby and the Luidaeg exchanged grim looks over him.

“Ohhh, right, you both have that feud with her. Okay.” Quentin’s hands were tied behind his back, so he couldn’t spread them invitingly before him, like a reasonable person making a reasonable argument. He tried to project it. “Just come home with me, and apologize, and I’m sure Lady Rosynhwyr will forgive you. She’s very gracious. And then we can all be happy, right?”

The Luidaeg snorted. Toby just looked faintly sick, so Quentin narrowed his focus.

“I’m sure my parents will even revoke the charge of high treason,” he assured her. “Even though you’ve definitely earned it, now. But I’ll explain that this was a mistake, that you just…”

Quentin couldn’t imagine what they thought they were doing. They’d knocked the Crown Prince on the Westlands on the head and stolen him from within the high royal knowe itself. He’d never have thought Toby would hurt him, and he knew the Luidaeg couldn’t. It didn’t make sense.

Except that they both hated his Firstborn, even though she was kind and beautiful and _wonderful_ , and Toby was a hero. Everyone knew that heroes did stupid, impossible things when they thought they were right.

“I warned you about this, too,” the Luidaeg was telling Toby. “She’s set her claws in him hard. Give me your hand.”

Toby held her hand out almost absentmindedly, and didn’t flinch when the Luidaeg sliced her palm with one viciously sharp nail and caught the blood in her pestle. She kept her gaze on Quentin. “I know this sucks, but don’t worry. We’re going to get you back.”

“Toby, I’m right here.” His voice cracked like it hadn’t in years. “You _kidnapped_ me.”

The Luidaeg bit at the bed of one nail, and mixed the blood into her progressing potion. “Almost done.”

“Almost done,” Toby repeated, patting his shoulder like he hadn’t heard.

Quentin jerked away. “Let me go, you- you _changeling._ ”

It wasn't the worst word he could have used, not by far. Toby recoiled like she'd been punched in the face. Except Quentin had seen Toby punched a lot, and she’d never looked that hurt before.

He hardened his heart. She _was_ a changeling. It was just a fact. She preferred it that way, for some incomprehensible reason.

“Her words, his mouth,” the Luidaeg said almost gently, and Quentin's scowl firmed up. They could at least pretend not to treat him like a child.

“Just listen to me,” he tried one last time with Toby. _Begged_ , when it should be beneath a prince’s dignity. “Forget what anyone else told you.” He shot a glare at the Luidaeg. “You and my Lady were friends, once. You know you don’t need to fight her. She’s wonderful. Just let me go back to her.”

“Quentin…” Toby’s eyes were full of sorrow, but her jaw was set. “Over my dead body.”

“Fine!” he snapped. “Fine. I didn’t want to do this, but—”

Quentin took a deep breath, and turned to the sea witch. “Luidaeg, I demand a favor of you. I'll pay your price.”

He’d expected her to frown, to grumble. To warn him against it, trying to mask defeat with vague threats and promises of lifelong regret. He didn’t think she would smile like a shark and ask, “Oh yes? What would you have of me.”

“I need you to help me return to my Firstborn’s side.” He hesitated, glancing at his the knight he’d once idolized. “If you can make Toby come, too—”

The Luidaeg snorted. “Toby will do her own thing, unless you want to pay a lot more. But sure, I’ll deliver you to her myself, whenever you ask—after you drink this.”

Quentin eyed the potion she held out, the one she had been brewing since he woke up. The one with both her blood and Toby’s. It looked innocuously pink.

“I’ll need my hands free.”

“No you don’t.” But she glared at the ropes and they wiggled themselves loose.

They hadn’t been so tight that he’d lost circulation, but still Quentin stood gingerly, and stretched just because he could. It bought him a moment to think.

His eyes flicked to the candles. He still had nightmares from the last time he had made a deal with the Luidaeg. This looked like a strawberry smoothie, far better than most of her drinks, but that meant nothing. She had been making it before he even offered a deal; it was almost certainly part of some plot against the Lady Rosynhwyr. That couldn’t be borne. He had to stop them.

But if he drank it, the Luidaeg would take him back to her. That was the important thing. Whatever Toby and the Luidaeg were planning, his Firstborn would know what to do.

“I accept your bargain,” he said, and took the cup and drank.

It tasted like salt and rotting herbs and blood, so much blood. Quentin’s hair stood on end, and he choked it down.

No sooner had he finished than Toby was beside him again, one hand slapped over his mouth. The other held her knife; he didn't notice until it sliced into his shoulder.

“Sorry,” she said, and pressed her lips to the wound.

There was pain, but only for a split second, like he’d dashed through a thin wall of fire. On the other side was darkness.

No, only the sky was dark—utterly dark, empty as pitch, devoid of sun and stars and even the Summerlands’ eternal twilight. Quentin’s heart sped up. He was in Blind Michael’s realm again—but it was different, now. The ground was softer than bare rock; there was the faintest hint of marshwater in the air. On one horizon lay Acacia’s forest; on the other--

He turned around and came face to face with himself, and himself again. Two of him stood there, looking back at him with mild expressions. They were almost identical: one more refreshed, perhaps, his golden curls freshly washed; the other wan and bloodied. The latter wore jeans and an off-brand Giants shirt, both torn, and not fashionably. He carried a naked blade. So did the first, but his stance was far better, his tunic and trousers appropriate for a court as well as knight errantry. He looked a prince; the other, a...bit of a mess, really.

“Not even a choice,” said an imperious voice behind him, and Quentin’s shoulders sagged in relief as he turned to the moon and stars that weren’t in the sky. Lady Rosynhwyr smiled back at him, his own Firstborn, with lips like spring’s fresh cherries and the light dancing in her eyes like every immortal life in Faerie.

The punch came out of nowhere, and hit her cheek with a _crack_ so hard that she stumbled.

“Get the _hell_ out of my squire’s head,” Toby snarled.

There she stood, shaking out her hand, back in a t-shirt and her leather jacket. “Wow, I’ve been waiting to do that for ages.” There was another audible crack as something in her wrist snapped back into place. She grimaced. “Worth it.”

She caught sight of Quentin staring at her in baffled consternation, and reached out to him again. “Don’t worry, Quentin, it's not really Evening. It's just a manifestation of her influence...”

Toby took in the way Quentin stood half a step in front of Lady Rosynhwyr, one arm back for her to lean on. Protective and supporting. She let her hand fall with a grimace. “Which I guess you're still feeling, even in here. Great.”

Quentin wasn't sure what to think about that, so he ignored it. “Toby, _what_ is going on? How are we here? Is this one of your blood Choice things?” He glanced nervously at the two versions of himself. Both had fully pointed ears. “But I’m pure Daoine Sidhe.”

Lady Rosynhwyr patted his arm. “Entirely correct. October is just trying to trick you.”

Toby clearly did her best to ignore her. “You drank my blood, and the Luidaeg’s. Her power is mostly buying us this time—” she gestured to the swamp grass—“but for the moment, you have Dochas Sidhe blood in you. That means I can help you get rid of her.”

“Don't be silly, my dear.” Lady Rosynhwyr smiled like a summer picnic, warm and inviting. “Quentin, come along. It's time to return home.”

She adjusted her grip on his arm to that of a lady being escorted to a ball, and tugged him around. Behind them lay the thorn bush, the portal home.

Toby grabbed his other hand. “Quentin, _please_.”

He hadn’t heard that scared edge in her voice since they’d faced his parents in Queen Arden’s knowe, when they had both thought the High King and Queen might take Quentin back to Toronto with them. It wasn’t difficult to turn back.

“Quentin, you’ve been my squire for three years,” Toby begged. “You’ve got to at least realize that this is all wrong. What will you do if you go back to her, live out your days in the palace? Never really go out again—Evening won’t want you to. Never meet people who aren’t looking for favors, never see how the rest of the world lives. Never have fun again.”

“A prince’s duty isn’t to have fun,” Lady Rosynhwyr snapped. “A prince’s duty is to rule his people, to look after them as best he sees fit. As I, of course, would stay and advise.”

Quentin’s heart beat with how much he wanted to stay with her forever, to hear her wisdom and sit in the glory of her presence. He pulled away from both women.

“Oh, because your priorities are definitely with the people of the Westlands.” Toby rolled her eyes, but her hand hovered half an inch above the hilt of her knife. “We don’t need to save them from your machinations at _all_.”

She turned back to Quentin, her other hand out. “Seriously though, if you want to help people, you have to come with me. I don’t know how much longer the Luidaeg can hold this.”

The smell of marshwater was getting stronger, but colder. It bit at Quentin’s skin.

“Come back to me, my dear.” His Firstborn beckoned, her smile like summer roses in snow. Her nails were tipped the same red. “You will help me set things right in this land.”

Quentin didn’t look at the maybe-selves behind him. They were irrelevant, next to the women before him.

“What will happen if I don’t?” he asked his Lady.

“You won’t,” she said, and her words carried the certainty of the setting and rising of the sun.

He turned to Toby. “And…”

Once again, her eyes were full of the winter fog’s sorrow, and her jaw was set like stone. “It’ll be okay,” she said gently. “I’ll figure out how to save you, too.”

He looked back to his Firstborn. Eira Rosynhwyr still smiled at him invitingly, but it was less kind, now. It was more like the Luidaeg’s, except the Luidaeg never hid her shark teeth behind rose-red lips and sweet words.

Quentin’s lungs seemed to crumble as he put his hand in Toby’s.

“This might hurt,” she warned.

He nodded.

It hurt a _lot_. It hurt like iron sheets being dragged over and under his skin and threaded through every vein in his body. He didn't know if he was screaming. He wished he was merely being burned alive.

Then it was over, and he was gasping for breath in the candlelit attic, upright only by dint of Toby’s hands on his shoulders.

“Easy, easy,” she said, and asked, “So, what do you think of Eira Rosynhwyr?”

Quentin’s head still ached—his whole body ached, like he'd just sprinted the length of Golden Gate Park without stopping. He grabbed at the first indignant thought that came to mind. “She ruined your wedding!”

Toby laughed, and hugged him. “She totally fucking did. We didn’t even finish our vows.”

Quentin hugged her back. The world was undefinably less _perfect_ than it had been five minutes ago; some soothing blanket had been removed and even the candlelight seemed harsh. But Toby’s hug was still soft, if bony and a little too tight, and she smelled comfortingly of blood.

She smelled a lot of blood, actually. More than she should for the stain on her shirt. And there was an undertone that Quentin had never smelled before, like freshly cut grass.

Quentin’s hands flew to his ears. He wasn't a Dochas Sidhe, he couldn't identify people by the scent of their magic or follow it like a bloodhound. But Daoine Sidhe were bloodworkers, too, and he knew what Toby’s magic should smell like. He knew what his _own_ magic should smell like.

It wasn’t missing, exactly. His father’s steel was still there, and his mother’s heather. But they were muffled, almost overwhelmed by blood.

“They’re still pointy,” said Toby, pulling back, and Quentin gave a maybe impolite sigh of relief as his probing fingers confirmed it. His ears were still pointed, his vision sharp in the dim light, his hair—when he pulled down a curl—as bronze as his father’s.

“You’re still Daoine Sidhe,” Toby explained. “I just kind of...covered it up? I think?” She shrugged, Quentin’s oh-so-all-knowing knight mistress who had never been taught how to use her powers. “It’s definitely not permanent.”

“You did well.” The Luidaeg finished propping up a wall to come purse her lips at Quentin instead. “I’d give it three days, before she can figure out where you are again, and catch you that easily. Don’t ask me to take you for a visit, though, because I will take you, and this won’t hold up if she makes any sort of effort.”

“I will not,” Quentin said fervently. But his shoulders drooped. “I guess you couldn’t rescue my parents, too?”

“They were a lot better guarded,” Toby said regretfully. “We only really had one shot.”

Quentin’s gaze darted around the room as he realized there was someone missing, who had _definitely_ been at Toby’s interrupted wedding. “Oak and ash, you weren’t using the Shadow Roads. Is Tybalt—”

“He’s fine,” Toby said quickly. “He’s with the local King of Cats, convincing him it’s a good idea to let us be here. It was going better without us in the room.”

Quentin wasn’t sure she knew she was rubbing her finger where there was supposed to be a ring by now. He didn’t mention it.

“Your parents will be fine,” said the Luidaeg. “They're a meal ticket, right now. The best thing for some people is to have two Daoine Sidhe on the throne, whose people sometimes actually like them.”

“Great,” Quentin muttered, and was rewarded with a shark-toothed grin. The friendly kind, though.

He had one last horrible thought to air. He did his best to square his shoulders, and look Toby in the eyes.

“I– I forswore you.” The straight posture didn’t help. He still felt close to tears. “I didn't– I did mean to do it. It just seemed so reasonable, when Lady– when _she_ said it. You were a traitor to the crown—you didn’t do anything to deserve it, but my parents decreed it and everything, and—”

“I’ve been a traitor to the crown before,” Toby said. “This probably won’t be the last time, either.” She blinked a couple extra times herself, but she held out her hand. “You’re still my squire as far as _I’m_ concerned. So when I run off to save the kingdom despite itself, you’re coming with.”

Quentin caught his breath, and shook her hand. “Right. So, what are we going to do?”

“Well, remember how I kind of promised your mother that I wouldn't overthrow her government while I was in town?” Toby cracked a grim smile. “Change of plans.”

  


**Author's Note:**

> "Why Eira, I thought you wanted your children to usurp their elders. Now you're against it all of a sudden, just because I've decided to give one a hand?" -the Luidaeg at some point later, definitely.


End file.
